🔗 Share this article

In Sweden, approximately seventy automotive mechanics continue to confront among the globe's richest companies – Tesla. The labor strike at the US carmaker's ten Swedish repair facilities has currently entered its second anniversary, and there is little sign for a resolution.

One striking worker has remained on the Tesla picket line since the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a difficult time," remarks the worker in his late thirties. With Sweden's cold winter weather arrives, it is expected to grow more challenging.

Janis devotes each Monday alongside a colleague, positioned near a Tesla service center within a business district located in southern Sweden. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides shelter via a mobile construction vehicle, plus hot beverages & sandwiches.

But it remains operations continue normally across the road, where the service facility appears to be in full swing.

The strike concerns an issue that reaches to the core of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the authority of trade unions to bargain for wages & conditions on behalf of their members. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for nearly a century.

Currently some 70% of Scandinavia's workers belong to labor organizations, while ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

This is an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the ability to negotiate directly with worker representatives and sign collective agreements," says Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

But Tesla has disrupted established practices. Vocal CEO the company leader has stated he "disagrees" with the idea of unions. "I just disapprove of anything which creates a sort of lords and peasants situation," he told listeners in New York last year. "In my view labor groups try to generate conflict in a company."

The automaker entered Sweden starting in 2014, and IF Metall has for years sought to establish a labor contract with the automaker.

"Yet they did not respond," states the union president, the organization's president. "And we got the impression that they tried to avoid or not discuss the matter with our representatives."

She states the organization eventually found no alternative except to announce industrial action, beginning on 27 October, 2023. "Typically the threat suffices to issue a warning," says Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually agrees to the agreement."

But not in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally from Latvia, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He claims that wages and work terms were often dependent on the discretion of managers.

He remembers a performance review where he says he was refused a salary increase on grounds that he "failing to meet Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a coworker was said to have been turned down for increased compensation due to he had the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, not everyone participated on strike. The company had approximately 130 mechanics employed when the industrial action was initiated. IF Metall says that today around 70 of its members are participating in the action.

Tesla has long since replaced the striking workers with new workers, for which there is not occurred since the Great Depression.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and methodically," states German Bender, a researcher at a research institute, a think tank supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not against the law, this being important to recognize. However it goes against all traditional practices. Yet the company doesn't care about norms.

"They want to be convention challengers. So if anyone tells them, listen, you are breaking a norm, they perceive this as a compliment."

The company's local division declined attempts for comment via correspondence mentioning "all-time high deliveries".

In fact, the automaker has granted only one press discussion during the entire period after the industrial action began.

Earlier this year, the local division's "country lead", the executive, told a business paper that it benefited the organization more not to have a collective agreement, and instead "to work closely with employees and give them the best possible terms".

The executive denied that the decision not to enter a labor contract was determined by US leadership in the US. "Our division possesses authorization to make our own such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not completely alone in its fight. The strike has been supported from several of other unions.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & neighboring states, decline to process Teslas; waste is not removed from the automaker's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed charging stations remain linked to power networks in the country.

There is an example close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where 20 chargers stand idle. However Tibor Blomhäll, the president of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, says Tesla owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There's another charging station 10km from here," he comments. "And we can continue to buy our cars, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our electric cars."

With stakes high for all parties, it's hard to see a resolution to the deadlock. The union faces the danger of establishing a pattern if it concedes the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is how this could expand," states the researcher, "and ultimately {erode